The Yeon Building is in the Jackson Square Historic District.

Its provenance is disputed. The Tremont Hotel perhaps stood here in 1855. The 1906 Earthquake and Fire either severely damaged or destroyed the hotel. The building we see today may incorporate the foundation and other bits of the hotel, or it may have been built from scratch in 1906.

According to Olmstead and Robins in Here Today: San Francisco's Architectural Heritage, the building dates from 1865 and may have housed the first French Consulate in San Francisco:

In keeping with this romantic flavor, its later tenants included Ina Coolbrith, port laureate of California, and a school of languages conducted by a Professor J. Mibielle. Further, Balance Street, which flanks one side of the building, was named for the Balance, a Gold Rush ship which ended her last voyage landlocked forever by the encroaching wharves and streets of the growing city....Olmstead and Robbins

The French Consulate may have also occupied two other buildings in this block in the 19th Century, the Solari Building West and the Solari Building East.